talk about afghanistan. the thing that confused or upset me, a lot of people with questions about afghanistan, even after the phased withdrawal, he'll end his presidency with substantially more troop there's than when we went in and it's very hard to see people on any side who can really define what success looks like. i know you've reported extensively on this for your books and "the post" and what do you make of it at this point? >> it's very -- if you step back, it's very unusual what the president's done here. he said we're going to start withdrawing before the end of the war. and if you get military leaders on sodium pen thal truth sear yum and say, ho do you really feel like this, they say, we'll go along because he's the commander in chief. they are dumbfounded that we had a strategy, and an objective, namely, counterinsurgency. protect the people, nation-bidding in nation-bi nation-building in afghanistan. we've gone to a strategy, really, let's get out. so maybe it's going to work, but it could back